


Falling Lessons

by LilyMalcon



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-25
Updated: 2013-09-29
Packaged: 2017-12-27 14:00:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/979761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilyMalcon/pseuds/LilyMalcon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The 99th Training Corps was where Levi Rivaille and Skena Rothschild learned to fly -- the Scout Legion was where they learned to fall. Set primarily in the past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Levi, 850

Author's Note: Oh god this is my first fic on this site please let it not suck. Okay, now that I've gotten that out of the way, this is the beginning of a fic. Basically, I noticed Levi's age and realized that fifteen years in the Scout Legion is a pretty long time - way too long for nothing worthy of a story to have happened. So as you may have guessed, this takes place primarily in the past, although there are several flash-forwards to the present.

For the record I  _have not read the manga_ , so please if you review this, try to avoid spoilers for things that haven't yet been animated! Thank you!

The usual basic disclaimers apply; I do not own Attack On Titan, or any of the characters except those obviously made up by me.

* * *

_**Levi, 850** _

For the first few days after arriving back at the Old Scout Headquarters, no one could sleep.

It wasn't the first time an expedition had ended in disaster. In fact, as far as things went, they'd seen worse returns. But no one liked to turn back after less than a day in the field. They didn't complete their objective. The female Titan had slipped through their fingers. It felt like a failure, because it was a failure.

The Old Headquarters was silent in the night. Summer's breath was beginning to fade, a touch of lingering chill creeping in, suggestive of the coming autumn. The castle seemed to tense in the still air, the kind of quiet that comes only when the entire regiment was only trying to sleep.

And beneath the smothering dark, Captain Levi Rivaille patrolled the halls like a ghost.

The watch was hardly necessary, this deep behind Wall Rose, but Levi detested the feeling of simply lying in bed without being able to sleep. He knew that this would keep up for the next day or so, before the Regiment collapsed from exhaustion and finally knew the sweet release of oblivion. It would be easier after that. It always was. Time would heal their gashes, their bruises, his broken leg. The wounds always closed eventually.

Well. Most wounds.

When he came to the roof, he was almost surprised to find himself there, but he stopped his rounds anyway, leaning on the stone wall at the edge to take the pressure off his bad leg. The moon was new, leaving the stars out in force. Some of the religious in the city claimed that the stars were loved ones lost, but Levi knew better. There were too many - surely, too many people who had died to be held by the sky. He'd known too many of them.

A little breeze kicked up and then faded, carrying a cold caress across his neck that raised goosebumps on his arms beneath his jacket. Autumn. It would be here within the month, two if they were lucky.

_I love this time of year._

He heard her voice like an echo on the breath of the breeze.

_I've never understood why things are at their most beautiful just as they begin to die._

He hadn't been able to resist writing the letter that now rested warmly in the pocket of his jacket. He knew she wouldn't want to see him; she never did. But she'd never neglected to answer a letter, either.

Maybe one day, she'd let him hear her voice for real, instead of the revenants born of sleep deprivation. He wondered if it still sounded like it did before. Perhaps he was as heartless as they said, but he didn't want the last thing he heard from her to be cursing him.

A scuff of leather on stone. The sound of breathing. These were not in his imagination, he knew.

"I know you're there," he said calmly, though his eyes didn't leave the stars.

"I know." The voice was a warm, kind contralto, though he wasn't used to hearing it so quiet and hoarse.

Hanji hopped up to sit on the low wall, legs swinging gently. She'd foregone her jacket, just wearing the undershirt and pants of their standard uniform. "Can't sleep?"

"No. No one can," he said, looking at her. Her arms were crossed, her hands grasping her upper arms. Behind her glasses, heavy circles surrounded her eyes. "Will you be all right, Hanji?"

"Eventually," she said. "How's your leg?"

He glanced down at his left leg; the sight of it set his teeth on edge. They'd set it and put it in a cast; it had been a clean break in his lower leg. He would be out of action until it healed. At first, they'd tried to get him to use a crutch, but the medics were scared enough of him to let him get away with only using a cane. Even that was an almighty pain in his neck.

"Stiff," he said. "But otherwise fine."

"You should still be on bedrest with it."

"Not a chance."

For a long while, they sat in silence. Before long, the soft chill seeped through the thin fabric of her shirt and she began to shiver. Levi took off his jacket and laid it around her shoulders before she could protest. He didn't mind. The little touch of cold awakened his senses, the hint of pain bringing reality into sharp relief.

"Thanks," she said quietly, hugging it tightly to herself. With a start, she drew the letter from the inner pocket. "Is this going out tomorrow?"

"Yes."

"Skena," she murmured, reading the name on the envelope. It held a Capital address beneath. "I didn't know you still wrote to her."

"I do."

"Me too."

Not many things surprised Levi, but that gave him a hint of pause that even she noticed.

"Not very often," she said. "But...but when I can. If you're sending a runner, do you think he can carry mine too?"

"I don't see why not. It'll be sent first thing."

"Good," she said, putting the letter back into the jacket and bringing her knees up to her chest, perched at the inner edge of the wall.

Another silence.

"I wish she were here," she said.

"I know."

"She'd know what to say."

"I know."

He looked at her, and saw the tears glistening in her eyes. "It's always been a numbers game. W-we're the only ones left in the Scout Regiment, Levi, from the Ninety-ninth. The rest are in the Capital or they died at Shigansina or Trost. Which of us will be the one to outlive the rest?"

_Skena will be_ , Levi thought, but didn't say it aloud. _She will be, or what I did will be for nothing._

Instead, he took her hand, and said, "I don't know."

"I'm sorry," she said, wiping away her tears with her free hand. "It just...god, it never gets easier. It hurts just as much every time."

"It should never be easy," Levi said, squeezing her hand so hard she winced. "It hurts because they lived, because they mattered, and because humankind won't survive without people like them. Don't ever let anybody tell you it shouldn't be hell to move on from this."

Hanji nodded, but more tears rolled down from behind her glasses. She gripped his hand tighter and a sob ripped through her chest, breaking the floodgate. "I hate this. This part. It's because of me. I just wanted to learn things to help people to  _keep_  from dying and n-now - now we -  _your squad_ , Levi, it's my fault - and Eren will be sent back to be given to people who never want him to see the light of day - If we'd tried to kill the female Titan instead of capture her -"

He released her hand and took her by the shoulders, hard.

"Then a lot more people would be dead," he said. "You know that. There's time to mourn yet. Get some sleep, Hanji."

"B-but -"

" _Sleep_ , Zoe," he said, his voice turning hard and formal. She flinched to hear it, but he still added, "That's an order. I'll send the runner in the morning for your letter."

"Yes, sir," she said, pulling a weak salute and breaking away from him.

He could still hear her sniffling halfway down the stairs. But sometimes, people had to cry to feel better. The truth didn't come to those who never hurt.

Levi had learned from trainers, yes - but pain was his best teacher. Pain, and Erwin Smith.

Pain, and Erwin Smith, and Skena Rothschild.


	2. Skena, 850

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Skena reflects on how things have changed, and has a bittersweet moment with an old friend.

**Author's Note:**  Holy jeez, this chapter turned out a lot longer than I'd intended. I actually wrote it twice; the first draft came out really rambly and didn't have any direction, so I rewrote it and now it's not as bad as it was. Having said that, it's still a little rambly and mostly exposition.

EDIT: Episode 23 came out just after I wrote this; as a result, I had to make a few tweaks, but mostly it's the same, since I didn't have the heart to rewrite it a third time.

* * *

_**Skena, 850** _

When the messenger, a Scout runner named Kohl, came to her before the Commander-in-Chief, bearing three letters, she knew that something had gone very wrong.

"Wait, Kohl," she told him as he'd turned to leave. "These aren't...their  _letters_ , are they?"

"No, ma'am," he said, dropping the formality of the delivery for the moment. "They're not...not  _those_  letters. These were written by the senders' own hands, not two days ago at the Old Headquarters. I swear it on my honor."

She nodded, then looked down at the envelopes in her hand, felt the thickness of them. She drew a deep breath. "How bad?"

"Not as bad as it could have been," he said, with a wry sort of optimism. "But...but bad, ma'am. Bad enough."

She thanked him and sent him on his way to Zacklay, with a few coins for his trouble. A pang of guilt ran through her; she should have asked after the wounded, or gotten the number of casualties at least. Instead, she'd only focused on those precious three, her commander and her onetime companions.  _Selfish old girl_ , she thought, as she walked through the little house into her bedroom and sat at her writing desk.

After four years out of the field – god, had it been so long? – Lieutenant Skena Rothschild knew the sequence for reading these letters. Erwin's first.

The commander laid out the report of what happened in much the same way as he wanted her to report it to Zacklay. He added special emphasis to the fact that the mission was very nearly successful, and only failed due to unforeseen circumstances. The trap had worked; they would have caught the female Titan, had it not been for her ace in the hole.

Regardless, casualties were heavy. Erwin had included the list of names with his letter. As far as sheer numbers went, Kohl had been right; this wasn't as bad as some of the more disastrous expeditions they'd seen. But those taken out were key players, and that made things more complicated. No less than four squad leaders had been killed, and a good deal of veterans, who had stepped in to protect the newer recruits. Levi's squad had been wiped out entirely, except for Eren Jaeger and Levi himself.

The letter ended with a few more addenda to make sure reached the Commander-in-Chief's ears, most of it about Jaeger. She was to stress how compliant the boy had been, how willing to participate in the experiments, and – this, he wrote, was most important – how he'd only triggered his Titan transformation when his life was obviously in danger, just as they'd ordered. Still, they could hardly leave it to Skena alone; he and his officers had been summoned to the Inner District with Jaeger, but because some were wounded, they couldn't come as fast as they otherwise would have. He would send Hanji on ahead with her squad.

Hanji's letter came next.

From the start, it was clear that she blamed herself for the mission going the way it did. If they'd gone for the kill instead of capture, if they'd known more about the female's capabilities before going in, if they'd performed more rigorous tests on their own human Titan - a million hypothetical outcomes peppered Hanji's thin, frantic script.

And most of all, she expressed worry over Eren Jaeger, and for good reason. This was meant to be a test run for him, to see if he'd be useful to humankind after all. The horrific failure of the mission didn't speak well to his potential use as a human weapon. Now she feared the worst, that he would be given up to the Military Police to do with as they saw fit – and everyone knew what that meant.

Skena knew more than enough about that particular can of worms; as the Scouting Legion's representative in the Capital, it was she who arranged the hearing to decide his fate, who suggested a strategy to Erwin after his meeting with Dot Pixis. Gambits had always been her specialty.

And that was why she had been there, silent and watching a few rows behind Erwin, when Levi kicked and brutalized Carla Jaeger's helpless son until his blood scattered like paint across the flagged stone of a royal courtroom. Eren did not know her name, but she was still an accomplice to some of his suffering.

It was not an unfamiliar role for her; she'd been filling it, in one capacity or another, for four years now.

She shook that thought from her head – for the moment, at least – and moved on to the last letter, from Levi.

Another report of his own to add to the collective truth. In his smooth, neat handwriting, he laid out in detail what had happened over page after page of report. Unlike Erwin, he spared her no information, although it was a clinical analysis.

Clinical - but then, at the end, he began to talk about his squad.

His second in command, Erd, had a lover in town and kept a level head despite everything Levi had thrown at him. Gunter had just reached the first anniversary of his graduation from Training Corps. Auruo, with his imitation of Levi in everything from his speech to his cravat, was the eldest of six siblings.

And Petra Ral had loved him as a student loves their favorite teacher. She had never expressed doubt in him. An exemplary soldier, with the compassion of a medic and the blade of a warrior.

"They were all hand-chosen by me. There were no finer soldiers in this Regiment."

_He's shaken_ , Skena thought.  _More than shaken, he's devastated. He's crumbling_.

The thought of it sent a strange stab of pain through her chest, a little constriction of her heart that made her right hand clench on the desk. Then she flinched and gasped, feeling the same sensation magnified on her left as though something had contorted painfully. She hated it when this happened. It reminded her, more than anything, of what she'd lost.

Getting up from her desk, she went into a cupboard by her wardrobe and pulled out a wooden box. One half of it was a simple frame, the inside fully visible. The other half was closed off, with only a hole where her arm could go in. Between them was a mirror.

On the open side, Skena placed her right hand. On the closed half, she rested the end of the stump where her left arm terminated about halfway between the elbow and where her wrist had once been.

Starting with her right hand in a fist, she looked into the little mirror. From the angle, it looked just like her nonexistent left hand. The visual trick had been Hanji's stroke of brilliance three years ago, the box itself made by a member of her squad.

Slowly, Skena relaxed her right hand, watching the reflection do the same. When it was fully relaxed, she clenched it again and repeated the motion. Gradually, she felt her phantom left hand relax, the mirror tricking her brain into believing it was there and could be controlled.

"Elsa," she called softly.

The young handmaiden appeared only moments later. "Yes, my lady?"

"A contingent from the Scouting Legion will be arriving in the city within the next two days," she said. "I'd like you to take a few messages to them when they arrive."

"Of course," Elsa said with a little curtsey; quietly, she added, "Will the Commander be joining them, my lady?"

"He will. Hanji's party is arriving first, but Commander Smith should be less than a week behind her," Skena said, not missing the way the girl's cheeks turned a becoming shade of pink. "One of the messages will be going to him."

_And yes, he's whole and hale and probably as beautiful as ever, but he's too old for you, child. And you don't want a soldier._

Skena blinked at her own thoughts; was she such an old woman, that she nearly said something like that? It certainly made her feel even older when she remembered that Elsa was twenty-three last month, hardly a child. In fact, she was in the very bloom of womanhood, exceedingly lovely in the soft way that only came from a safe life behind Wall Sina. She was all golden ringlets and ivory skin, with the delicate bone structure which marked the nobility. Her most striking feature was her eyes, to be sure; they were cyan, true cyan, of a kind that reminded Skena of the skies outside the walls at the height of summer. The kind of blue that hurt when you looked at it too long.

Shaking such silly things from her head, she said, "The other two will be going to Hanji Zoe and Levi Rivaille."

"C-Captain Levi, my lady?" Elsa blurted, the blood rushing in quite the opposite direction now, away from her face.

"All you have to do is hand him the letter and leave," Skena said. "If you'd like, you can even give his letter to Hanji instead. It may even be preferable, since she'll be arriving ahead of time."

"Will Miss Zoe be making a visit during their time here?" The handmaiden's smile was hopeful; not for the first time, she was showing just how different she was from what Skena had lived with for so long. Elsa wore her emotions plain on her face.

"Yes, I hope so. The note you bring to her will be inviting her for tea. Hopefully she can do that before we need to address the more serious matters - or worse, she gets summoned back to the Commander, which I suspect may happen. I'll give the messages to you when they're done. That will be all, Elsa."

"Very good, my lady," Elsa said. With a curtsey, she left the room.

Just like the process of reading them, the process of responding to the letters was also something Skena had gotten down to a routine. First, she wrote a short note to be delivered to Hanji, inviting her over at her earliest convenience. Hanji needed some quiet time with a friendly face; that was clear from her letter.

Next, she wrote a message for Erwin confirming that she had understood the letter and that she would be giving the report to Zacklay as soon as he would give her audience. Those two were always the easiest letters.

In this, as in most things, Levi was different. She would write two letters for him, but he would only receive one.

The first would be written tonight, by the light of a candle. Skena had never liked the dark; not now, after all the things she'd done that were so eager to come and haunt her. When the silent walls of her bedroom stood in judgment and her heart felt like a hole in the center of her chest that made her gasp for air as though she were drowning, when the only thing she wanted in this entire world was the touch of another human being to let her know that she wasn't alone, not yet, not completely, she would write that first letter.

And she would put everything she truly wanted to say into it.  _I'm still here,_  she would write.  _We're still a team as long as I draw breath. This is not your fault. Stay strong. Keep fighting. I'll keep fighting too._

_I miss you. I forgive you._

After that letter was written, she would fold it and seal it, and it would go into a small, ornate box in a safe to which only she had the key. In that box was four years' worth of darkness, locked away where no one would ever see it.

Then, she would go to bed. In the morning, she would write the true letter, the one that would go to him. She would still say that it wasn't his fault, and to stay strong. Perhaps she would tell him a little of the strategies she was formulating, under Erwin's orders, to free Eren Jaeger, even if it was a long shot at this point.

Until then, there was nothing to do but wait.

Hanji wasted no time in accepting the invitation; the Scouts' horses were barely cooled down from the ride when she knocked on Skena's door. When Elsa led her into the small drawing room, she struck a salute with a grin.

"I'm glad you came," Skena said, returning the smile just a little.

"Me too," Hanji said. The women sat down.

"Tea?" Skena offered. Hanji hesitated.

"I...don't suppose you might have something a little stronger?"

She smiled. "Elsa, be a dear and bring up some of the whiskey from the cellar."

After a little bit of idle chat and whiskey, Hanji sighed. "I've just been thinking about the past so much lately. And then this comes up, and...I don't know."

"What caused you to start remembering so much?"

"Eren Jaeger," she said. Skena felt the small muscles in her neck tense. "And his friends. Maybe I'm just an old lady, but...damn it all if they don't remind me of us at that age. Have you met them?"

"Only Ackerman," Skena said. "Bright girl, but very quiet. Jaeger is another story. In the courtroom he seemed very..."

"Passionate? Determined? A little bit trigger-happy?" Hanji said, smiling softly. "Just like you, when you were that age. And Mikasa, she's got the focus and the skill. She learns like lightning, and she's a natural in the maneuver gear."

"Sounds like Levi."

"Just like Levi. Maybe they'd be great friends, if he wasn't so..."

"So Levi."

"Yes, that's what I was looking for."

"And Arlert?"

"Armin? He only wants to see outside the wall. Fire mountains and the great salt sea."

"My, my," Skena said, taking another sip of whiskey and giving Hanji a little smirk. "That  _does_  sound like someone I know."

Hanji smiled. "He's a sweet boy." Slowly, her smile faded. "Maybe this will sound bad, but...I hope they don't turn out like us. Or dead. I don't know if I could bear seeing them wasted."

"It doesn't sound bad," Skena said quietly. "We're not young anymore, Hanj. We couldn't have kids of our own; all we have are the cadets. We want a better life for them, that's all."

"Don't I know it. I feel older every day," Hanji said. Then she asked, "Did Erwin tell you the exact location of the forest where we set the trap?"

Skena sipped at her whiskey and shook her head; she hadn't expected the topic of the mission to be brought up, willingly, so soon. "No, he didn't."

"It was four kilometers outside of Marmion Village. The old-growth forest with the little shacks by the path at the treeline."

It took a moment for the information to process and for Skena to realize just where that was. "You're joking."

"I wish I was. I...I wanted my only memories of that place to be happy."

"I know," she said. "Did Levi recognize it too?"

"Definitely. He didn't tell me, but..." Hanji suddenly gave a little chuckle.

"What?"

"Eren told me that when they first got into the forest, Levi ordered him to look at all the big-ass trees."

The laugh burst from her chest before Skena had a chance to stop it. Hanji pointed and laughed at her, which made Skena laugh some more, putting her glass down to place a hand over her mouth to try to stifle it. Fifteen years lay between then and now, but she swore she could still hear the voices of the brash fools they once were, laughing too.

"Do you remember," Hanji said, "how when we first got there that night, Emil had still never seen a Titan – he'd had that broken ankle when we took the trip to Wall Maria – and he asked if they were as tall as those trees –"

"So we told him they were," Skena said, chuckling softly. She shook her head. "The look on his face. We were bad, bad people."

"He didn't even know we were lying until his first expedition," Hanji managed to say between gasps of laughter.

"Remember how Dietrich and Levi had a race, and Dietrich was so drunk he crossed Levi's line and –" For the first time in a very long time, Skena was unable to finish her sentence because of the quiet laughter in her chest.

"And they got tangled and went barreling into that clearing!" Hanji finished for her. "I remember that! We thought they were dead!"

"Thought Levi had killed him, more like. I'm still amazed they both walked away."

"We were drunk and young," she said, the laughter quieting and subsiding. "And finally out of training. We were Scout Legion. Nothing could hurt us." After a little pause, she added, "I never saw Levi smile as much as he did that night."

"I know."

"He doesn't smile much at all anymore."

"I know." Skena took a long drink of her whiskey.

Hanji sighed and slid her glasses a little higher on her nose. "Will...will you ever forgive him, Skena?"

"I don't know."

"You forgave me."

"You didn't give the order."

"No, but I held you down."

"I don't want to talk about this again, Hanji. Not now."  _Not half-drunk, with the names of our dead friends still fresh on our lips._

"I know. I'm sorry," she said. "I just...it's so hard, without you. It's hard for him too, but he doesn't show it."

"He never did."

"Do you think..." Behind her glasses, Skena could see the blur where tears were forming in Hanji's eyes. "...that it would ever be the same? If you did forgive him, or if Erwin let you back in the field...would it ever be like it was? Even a little?"

There was a long silence. The candlelight flickered between them like a warm light of hope.

"Maybe," she said. Hanji smiled, and nodded, and it was clear that she believed her.

The years in the city had made Skena a coward after all. But the lie was so much kinder than the truth, hurt so much less, that for a moment she almost – almost, god help her – believed it, too.


	3. Skena, 832

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thirteen years before the attack on Wall Maria, a young nobleman's daughter enters the training corps and makes some unlikely friends.

**Author's Note:**  This chapter was actually meant to be much longer, but then I realized that if I fit everything I wanted to into it, it would be waaaay too long and take weeks and weeks to write. So, I'm splitting up their training into more than the two chapters I had originally intended. I hope you guys can forgive me if it seems to drag on, but splitting it up allows me to add more detail where it's needed and skip the stuff that doesn't need to be fleshed out.

* * *

_**Skena, 832** _

It was clear from the very beginning that her family did not believe she would make it through training.

After all, she didn't look like a military sort. At thirteen she still looked like ten, small and slight, a fine, delicate bone structure hidden by a soft layer of stubborn baby fat. Her skin was ivory, her eyes gray, and her hair so red it shone like copper in the sun. They were the tokens of her heritage; there was no doubt that the family was rooted in the North, where folk said fairies and elves still dwelt in the dikes and frozen nymphs came out in the winter.

Skena Rothschild had never seen a fairy or a nymph. As the only daughter of Waldemar Rothschild, Lord Paramount of the Northern territories, she'd never gotten much of a chance to roam; most of her life was spent in the Inner District.

It was a tradition for the noble families to send one or two of their children to train with the military, but it was quickly moving out of style, now more than ever. When she told her father of her intention, he applauded her politely, but made sure she knew that there was no shame if she didn't make it through training.

_Yes there is_ , she thought.  _I will not be less than perfect. I will not._  She had been practicing even before then, when she was alone, trying to build up her strength in preparation. She was happiest in the mornings afterward, when she felt her muscles glowing with the soreness that assured their slow growth.

Her father hadn't been there to see her off to the boat which would take her to Trost and her training. But Oberon, her cousin and heir to the title, had made it out, and stood with Mother on the pier with her.

"Don't worry," Oberon had told her, finally, before she'd gotten on the boat. "They don't know about northern resolve. You'll have them shaking in their boots."

She'd had always had a knack for telling when people were lying.

And now, it was their first day of training. After breakfast in the mess hall, they'd been arranged alphabetically in the yard by a woman in a Garrison uniform. That was when the whispers had started; Skena could hear them. The commoners resented nobility, who lived in the interior where they were assured to be safe. It didn't matter that the walls hadn't been breached in eighty years or more; the knowledge was there, that if it did happen, the border people were the first to go. There would be no mercy for her here; they, like her family, didn't expect her to stay long.

The first thing that the woman in uniform taught them was a proper salute. Arms in, elbow touching your side, fist over your heart, thumb out, wrist cocked. Off hand behind your back, slanted with your knuckles touching your right hip. It wasn't so bad.

"Memorize the people around you," the woman said. "This is standard roll call formation, and we will not be teaching it to you again. Now, wait here at attention."

Then she left. How long had it been? An hour? More?

If they wanted to make assumptions about her, then the only way she could fight back was to prove them wrong. She held her salute firmly even as she could feel her hand going numb and the rest of the recruits around her had begun to pant and drop their aching arms. It was only spring, but summer's heat had come early this year. She could feel a stinging on her cheekbones and knew that this Southern sun would have no mercy on her pale complexion.

Skena glanced to her left and right. To her left, there was a boy maybe a year older than her – children from twelve to fifteen were accepted into Training Corps – with blond close-cropped hair and warm brown eyes. Schaeffer was his name, she remembered from when they were organizing. Emil Schaeffer.

To her right, a solemn boy held a salute even more resolutely than she did. He was small, even smaller than Skena, black-haired and a little underfed. He looked across the field at the other recruits with sharp, dark blue eyes, before finally his head turned just a little to glance sidelong at Skena.

" _What part of stand at attention did you little bastards not understand?!_ "

As one, the corps startled and renewed their salutes as the speaker strode onto the yard, through the rows of recruits. He was a hard-looking type, and although his hair was more than half gray, his posture easily rivaled those of the younger men. His eyes were green and cruel as they swept over the children.

"Well, let's see," he said finally, coming to a stop at the head of the company. His voice boomed over them so that they could all hear it. "There's the gods of the Walls and the sky and the earth...and then there's whatever the hell they do in the North. You see, I'm just not sure who to pray to in order to save us from the Titans, 'cause it sure as hell  _isn't going to be this piss-poor lot_! Now, my name is Carl Eisen, and for the next three years, I'm your worst nightmare.

"You!" he singled out a small blonde girl near the front and walked over to stand in front of her. "Just who are you?"

"Lorel Adler from Brelsen, sir!" the girl squeaked.

"Brelsen is in the West, isn't it?"

"Yes, sir! Forty kilometers outside Chlorba District!"

"I don't give a fuck how close it is to Chlorba. Why is there dirt on your uniform, Adler?"

"I-I tripped on the dormitory stairs, sir!"

"Adler, it is day one. If you can't learn how to use the legs god gave you, how do you expect to keep humanity safe?"

"I d-don't know, sir!"

"Horse-fucking Westerners, why do we bother with you?" Eisen snapped, before rounding on another cadet, this one a few spaces down the line. "Name!"

"Sigmund Casimir, from Stohess District, sir!"

"Casimir, that is one dumbass-looking face you've got there. Who was your daddy, a goddamn goat?"

"He was a herdsman, sir!"

"Oh, so it was your mama who was the goat! My mistake, Casimir – now maybe if you try real, real hard, then in three years you will be fit to hand over to the Scouting Legion to use as Titan bait! How does that sound, Casimir?"

"Sounds good, sir!"

"Goddamn right."

On it went. Every few soldiers got the treatment. Occasionally, a cadet that was passed would breathe a sigh of relief only for Eisen to come back and round on them. Finally, he came to the back half of rows, stopping first at a broad-shouldered mountain of a boy with tousled, sandy hair.

"Name."

"Micah Pfeifer, sir!"

"And why are you here, Pfeiffer?"

"I want to defend the Walls in the name of God, sir!"

"Well bless my soul," Eisen boomed. "We got a live one here, don't we? You believe in God, you worm?"

"With all my heart, sir!"

"And you believe the Walls are from God?"

"Yes, sir!"

"Good! Then when you wash out like the scrub you are, maybe you can become a priest and be of use to somebody for once!"

Instead of going across the row, this time Eisen went straight back, to a girl who looked as though she was trying very hard not to burst with something to say. She was already starting to grow her arms and legs looking a little too long for her body. Her hair was dark brown, tied back so that only her bangs fell around her wide brown eyes.

"Hanji Zoe, sir!" she said brightly, not waiting to be asked. "From Beleg!"

"Did I tell you to give me your name, cadet?"

The girl called Hanji hesitated. "No, sir, but I thought you might want to know it anyway, sir!"

"And why are you here, Early Zoe?"

"I want to join the Scouting Legion to see outside the Walls, sir, to help humanity take it back!"

It was as though she'd hit him. A ripple of murmurs broke out across the yard. Even the solemn boy next to Skena made a little  _tch_  sound.

"Well, every village needs an idiot," Eisen said, probably knowing that nothing could damn the Zoe girl as much as her own mouth just had.

The next person he stopped in front of was Skena.

"Now if you don't look like a little Northern fairy, I don't know what does! What's your name, fairy?"

"Skena Rothschild, sir!" she said, trying to keep her voice from trembling. Here, in the shadow of this large instructor and under his cruel gaze, it felt like the air itself had become harder to breathe.

"Rothschild? A little princess, then! What are you doing here?"

"I want to make my family proud, sir!" she blurted.

"Well that's a damn shame, Fairy Princess, because you sure as hell ain't gonna make it in this army!"

Much like when Hanji had been called, Skena could hear the whispers begin around her.  _Lord's daughter_ , she heard.  _What's she doing here?_  The ones who hadn't known before certainly knew now; there would be no anonymity for her here. The only consolation was that she suspected that there would be none for anyone else, either.

Not even for the black-haired boy to her right, to whom Eisen had already moved on. "Now who the fuck are you, kid?"

"Levi Rivaille," the boy said. His voice was as solemn as his face, not even raising under the instructor's scrutiny.

"I do believe that is the single stupidest name I've heard in all my days. Was your bitch of a mama too drunk when she was naming you, Rivaille?"

"I wouldn't know, sir."

"You lie about your age or are we recruiting runts of the litter now? How old are you, boy?"

"Fourteen, sir."

"Four – ain't no goddamn way, you miniscule little shit. I'll be looking forward to watching you wash out."

It was a simple waiting game after that. Strauss, Thorn, Vogel. The rest got their turn, or would in the coming days. Eventually, Eisen headed back to the front – but not before he stopped just once more, at a smiling boy near the front. Just before he passed, the boy caught Skena's eye and threw her a wink; that was when Eisen rounded on him.

"Who are you?"

"Dietrich Engel, from Shiganshina District, sir."

"Shiganshina, huh? So much for the bravest of humanity, if all they can send are punkasses like you. Engel, why the fuck are you smiling? Have I done something to amuse you?"

"I'm just happy to be here, sir."

"Bullshit. Do you have a crush on me? Do you think I'm pretty, Engel? You want to dance with me?"

"I wouldn't sully your maidenly virtue in such a way, sir."

The first act that the 99th Training Corps did as one cohesive team was tremble with the communal effort of holding in laughter.

* * *

"Is Engel still running?" someone asked, as the majority of the Corps filed into the mess hall. The sun was just sinking down over the western edge of the Wall. Skena held back, watching where everyone sat down, and with whom.

"Yeah," the boy called Sigmund answered as he took his place at a table with his food. "I saw him on my way here. He doesn't even look tired."

"My dad says," chimed up Emil, "that it's tradition for the instructors to make one of the recruits run on the first day. It's to make an example out of them."

"Well, I don't know how successful he'll be with Dietrich," said a round-faced brunette girl with sharp eyes through a mouthful of bread. "I've never known anybody to be more of a hardheaded little fuckface."

"You know him from before?" Sigmund said.

The girl nodded. "We're both from Shiganshina. I'm Emma, by the way. Emma Lamorliere."

The rest of their conversation was lost in the din as Skena followed the flow of people to get food. Many of the recruits, she noticed, were already picking up on the casual vulgarity they'd heard in the yard during the day. Taught since birth that anything so much as an out-of-place word was tantamount to slapping someone in the face, the offhand way the rest of them spoke seemed strange to her, almost foreign entirely.

That morning, they had been relatively quiet, not mindful of who they were sitting with; now, little groups had obviously started to form. The girl called Emma stayed and talked with Sigmund, and a freckled boy named Stefano had already come to join them. At another table, Lorel Adler, the girl from Brelsen, had struck up a conversation with Emil, and Micah seemed to have a few others at his own table. Through the mess hall, it seemed as though everyone had gravitated toward a group.

Skena had not. She drifted a few steps into the hall after she'd gotten her ration, her skin alive with the feeling that everyone was watching her, even if they weren't in truth. Spotting a nearly-empty table near the back of the hall, she headed for it, seeing no other choice.

She could hear the whispers again as she passed.  _Only here for pride's sake to wash out_ , she heard from someone not wise enough to keep their voice down.  _The little fairy_ , someone muttered from somewhere else; their entire table laughed to themselves as they watched her pass by.

When she got to the table, she saw that it was already occupied, albeit by only one person.

"May I sit here?" she asked. The black-haired boy who had stood next to her on the yard looked up from the table and nodded. She sat across from him.

For a few minutes, they ate in silence. For his own part, the boy didn't seem to mind sitting alone, although Skena still felt the phantom eyes on her.

"You're Rivaille, right? Levi?" she asked, grasping at something, anything, to say.

He nodded again. "And you're Rothschild."

"Yes," Skena said, even though it was not a question.

"And I'm Hanji!" a loud voice said as the tall girl from the yard sat down heavily next to Skena.

"The heretic, right?" Levi asked. There was no malice in it; his tone was decidedly neutral. Hanji Zoe didn't seem to mind either way.

"That's me," she said with a smile. "And you two are the runt and the fairy. Should be a nice few years."

Skena glanced up at Hanji's face, searching for a sign of artifice, of the derision that Eisen had shown. She found none. Her confusion must have shown on her face, because Hanji laughed.

"Oh, come on," she said. "It's practically an honor to get chewed out on the first day. It means you're worth noticing. Didn't you know that?"

"No," Skena said, feeling foolish all over again.

"Lorel's the clumsy one, and Sigmund's the ugly bastard," Hanji said. "It's sort of a way of getting us all to know each other before we even talk."

"How do you know this?" Levi asked.

"Emil just told me, five minutes ago," she said through a mouthful of bread. "His whole family's military, practically. His dad's in the Military Police. I figured that this was something you guys would need to hear."

"Why?"

"So that you don't look so fucking sad, Rivaille, that's why!" she giggled. She turned to Skena and gave her tray a little push toward her. "Eat. If you don't, you'll regret it. Real training starts tomorrow."

She was right, Skena knew; she forced a bit of food through the butterflies in her stomach. But it wasn't as bad now, for some reason, with this girl talking to her. The chatter cut through the anxieties, if only a little.

"So, are there really elves and gnomes and fairies in the North?" Hanji asked, half-teasing.

"I wouldn't know," Skena said. "I've never seen one."

"Well, one day, when we're soldiers, we'll take our leave there and go hunting for unicorns!" Hanji said with a bright smile; Skena couldn't help but smile back, and the other girl gave her a nudge. "That's the spirit. Can't go through this whole thing miserable, or you'll wash out for sure."

It wasn't until they'd all gone to the dorms and the lights-out had been called that Skena realized that the other recruits were also children, some younger than her. She wasn't sure what she was hearing when the soft sobbing began in a few different corners of the room. Everyone had seemed so confident to her in the mess hall, as though she were the only one who felt out-of-place. But no one had known what to expect from this first day, except maybe Emil, thanks to his family. The rest were just as confused and lost as she was.

It was a strange sort of comfort, but it was comfort nonetheless. It gave her something in common with the other recruits, even if they never spoke of it aloud. She curled her legs up to her chest and burrowed her head into the hard, scratchy pillow.

She didn't think she would sleep, but she did.


End file.
